As Florida Hopes Fade, Giuliani Says He Expects ‘Miracles’

Jon Ponder

Rudolph Giuliani never counted on winning in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina next month. Instead, he’d set his sights on Florida, hoping a decisive win there on Jan. 29 would set the stage for a big sweep on Feb. 5, when 22 states hold primaries, including his home state of New York and California, where he calculated that his liberal-Republican affinity with Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger would trump his campaign’s failed attempts at dirty tricks and deliver a win.

One astute observer of Republican nefariousness suggested that the “miracle” he’s expecting is similar to the sort of vote-rigging “miracle” that handed Florida, and the presidency, to George W. Bush in 2000.

But in the wake of a new poll that showed him in third place in Florida after Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Giuliani gave aspeech in Tampa that pundits say was intended to reset his campaign that featured this telling formulation:

“Iâ€™ve met adversity before [9/11]. Iâ€™ve led in situations that seemed hopeless [9/11] and dire [9/11], in need of a miracle,” he said. “I don’t just hope for miracles. I expect miracles.”

One astute observer of Republican nefariousness* suggested that the “miracle” he’s expecting is similar to the sort of vote-rigging “miracle” that handed Florida, and the presidency, to George W. Bush in 2000.

In any case, Giuliani, the cousin-marrying serial adulterer, shouldn’t get his hopes up for divine intervention because it appears that Huckabee — who recently claimed that God Himself is directing his surge in popularity — has cornered the market where miracles are concerned.

Naming several issues, he suggested the American call was to “get it done,” to which he answered “and we will.”

…The speech was reminiscent of Giulianiâ€™s first inaugural address as mayor in 1994 — made famous by a young Andrew Giuliani lingering at the podium, waving to supporters — in which Giuliani repeatedly said: “It should be so, and it will be so.”

(It also reminded at least one person of the Larry the Cable Guy catchphrase, as one supporter yelled “Git-R-Done!” amid Giulianiâ€™s speech.)

No word from the Giluiani campaign on whether the former New York City mayor is a fan of Larry the Cable Guy — or if he had ever heard his catch phrase before Saturday.

“Julie Rudiani” is the worst politician in the USA. His ideal leader is the current occupant of the White House. This hack needs to be kept out of public life and government at all costs. I still want to know about his prior knowledge of 9/11. For me, everything changed after 9/11; I stopped believeing a word these politicos have to spew.

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Enumerati

67%

A new CBS News poll finds that while 55% of Americans disapprove of the way President Trump reacted to the violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, 67% of Republicans approve of his response.

A new PRRI survey finds that 40% of Americans — including nearly three-quarters of Democrats but just seven percent of Republicans — back impeaching President Trump and removing him from office.

Enumerati

16

ThinkProgress notes that just 16 of 292 Republicans in Congress have released statements that call out Trump directly by name or title for his comments.

Enumerati

3x

Consider this: In the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection there are three times as many statues of Confederate soldiers and politicians as there are statues of black people in the entire Capitol complex, according to records maintained by the Architect of the Capitol, the Washington Post reports

Enumerati

34

Washington Post: PayPal has agreed to removed at least 34 organizations, including Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, two companies that sell gun accessories explicitly for killing Muslims, as well as all accounts associated with Jason Kessler, the white nationalist blogger who organized the Charlottesville march, according to a list provided to the Post by Color of Change, a racial justice organization seeking to influence corporate decision makers.

Verbatim

“If allowed to continue along this senseless path, Mr. Trump will do lasting harm to American society and to our standing in the world. By his words and his actions, Mr. Trump is putting our national security and our collective futures at grave risk.”

Verbatim

“The white supremacist, KKK, and neo-nazi groups who brought hatred and violence to Charlottesville are now planning a rally in Lexington. Their messages of hate and bigotry are not welcome in Kentucky and should not be welcome anywhere in America. We can have no tolerance for an ideology of racial hatred. There are no good neo-nazis, and those who espouse their views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head.”

— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been publicly silent so far over President Trump’s latest remarks on Charlottesville, “is privately upset” with the president’s handling of the episode, CNN reports.

Verbatim

“I’m sorta glad that them people got hit and I’m glad that girl died. They were a bunch of Communists out there protesting against somebody’s freedom of speech, so it doesn’t bother me that they got hurt at all. … I think we’re going to see more stuff like this happening at white nationalist events.”

— Justin Moore, the Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, said he was glad that a woman died in Charlottesville when a car drove through a crowd, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Verbatim

“If Trump finally pushes Bannon out of the White House, the nationalist policy project will be all but dead. The new chief of staff, John Kelly, is far more moderate on immigration and has pushed Trump to abandon the idea of a physical border wall. Economic policy will be fully under the control of Cohn, and the heretical idea of raising taxes on the wealthy will have no champion. Trump himself has always been more animated by the xenophobia of Bannonism than by its populist economic views. A Trump White House without Bannon will be no more radical in its coddling of far-right groups—today Trump showed again that he needs no encouragement—but it will be more captured by the traditional small-government agenda of the G.O.P. Bannon hoped to destroy.”

Verbatim

“What is Robert E. Lee known for? This is what I mean by the margins of the debate. Lee is known for one thing: being the key military leader in a violent rebellion against the United States and leading that rebellion to protect slavery. That’s it. Absent his decision to participate in the rebellion he’d be all but unknown to history. He outlived the war by only five years. There’s simply no positive side of the ledger to make it a tough call. The only logic to honoring Lee is to honor treason and treason in the worst possible cause.”